It's something I've been working on more this year because I had a bit more travel than usual so couldn't do actual home cleaning, but I always take a couple of days in the Month Of Cleaning where I'm focused on my digital life. It's good to make your physical home a comfortable place for yourself, but it's also good to recognize that we have "digital" homes that need attention. And often this is at least less physically demanding, so it's good to keep it in your back pocket for days when you're mentally okay but physically too tired or sore to do more of that kind of work.
In the shortest possible terms, digital cleaning is just making sure that your phone, computer, socials, and other digital "presences" are organized in a way that you find helpful, and that you take a moment to either answer those messages you've been putting off or give yourself amnesty on doing so.
This tends to make a lot of people extremely anxious in a way ordinary physical space cleaning doesn't, so I'm going to put the rest of it behind a cut...
So when I say digital cleaning, I refer to stuff like going through my likes on Tumblr and clearing them out, going through my drafts and turning them into queued posts, answering my asks. I spend time in my email inboxes, either responding to messages or removing them. I am not an "inbox zero" kind of guy, but I like to keep the read-but-not-answered messages to a minimum, and towards the end of the year that usually means a clear-out and amnesty. I clean my Google Drive -- delete old files I uploaded for others, move documents I'm no longer using into an archive, move documents I want to work on into a central work folder. I go through my catch-all folder on my hard drive and organize it; I sort through the year's photos and organize those, partly to archive them and partly because I make a scrapbook from them each year. I don't usually have a ton of tabs open but often have more than I'd like, so I go through them all and either read, bookmark, or get rid of them.
I look in my phone's file tree to make sure I delete files I don't need (mostly menu downloads, Restaurants Stop Making Your Menus PDFs Challenge 2K24) and I sometimes go through each app on my phone, make sure I still use it, and make sure it's set how I want it. If this sounds like a nightmare, bear in mind that I very rarely put apps on my phone to start with -- I think my mother has more apps open at any given time than I have apps on my phone ever.
Everywhere I clean, I look for files named things like "notes" or "deal with" or "random" and move them all into one place so that whatever is in them, I can sort through it and make sure it goes somewhere permanent. Logins go in the login/password spreadsheet I keep, addresses go into my contacts, story notes go into a "fiction scraps" file, random thoughts either get moved into a journal file or put into drafts to become Tumblr posts, etc.
If this sounds like I might have some kind of compulsion disorder, I get that; when I explain my digital hygiene systems a lot of people look at me like I'm spouting a mad but harmless conspiracy theory. But it's something I used to have to do periodically even before I created National Clean Your Home Month, because otherwise I could never find anything, and everything was just...harder. As I once told a boss who admired my organizational skills, "It was this or endless chaos."
Putting addresses into my contacts list means I always know that the addresses I have for my friends are up to date. Putting logins into a spreadsheet means that five minutes spent now will not result in five weeks of procrastination later because I can't find the login and can't do anything else until I do that. Going through my email and archiving old conversations means not only can I find them easily when needed, I don't have to look at them the rest of the time. Sometimes I even go through my various wish lists and remove old/purchased items, or clear out all my "save for later" carts.
There's no doubt this is stressful, but like every part of NaClYoHo, it's broken down into smaller tasks; I don't have to look at my computer and organize everything on it all in one day. I can answer a few asks, then sort photos (something I find very soothing up until the moment I Don't), then read and delete some emails, then I'm done for the day. I can spread "answer or file all your work emails" out over a couple of days. I can maybe empty out my Likes but just turn the ones I actually want to reblog into drafts for now and deal with them later in the "drafts" phase of cleaning. And if I don't manage to empty out my inboxes, at least they're emptier than they were.
I'm struggling this morning with having put a bunch of physical cleaning on the to-do list but not feeling physically up for it, so I did what I felt capable of doing (measuring cabinets for new shelf liners mainly) and later today I might sit down and start building this year's photobook. Or not -- I have to code Radio Free Monday, sort out a prescription and possibly go pick it up, plus a very full day of work and a couple of afternoon appointments I can't shirk, so today may simply be a "get through the day" kind of day. That's okay too; some days the spirit is willing but the schedule is full.
Struggling to keep your digital space in order? You’re not alone. Today’s blog is all about low-pressure, subtractive digital housecleaning—no minimalist perfection, just real strategies for messy brains. #DigitalDeclutter #Neurodivergent #DreamspaceStudio
Opportunity to sit as a collective, remotely and attend to the digital space with care. e.g. deleting, wiping, organising, new folders, downloads, deleting emails, apps, desk tops, tracking hashtags. writing notes to self. finding. losing. before/after. storage.
Thinking about the kind of NESTING PROCESS & STORAGE SYSTEM. Considering the questions that we process when undertaking this kind of task:
- where does this belong? do I need it? should I keep it? should I delete it? where is the safest place? what system should I use? does this fit better here? what kinds of factors are considered during this decision process? what do I value?
- Caring and Cleaning as a care practice: creating an individual value system. Or perhaps it’s a household one: for pairs, for families, is it cohesive for everyone? who makes these decisions? what do I value and why and where and how is this system maintained: e.g. efficiency, emotional intuition, aesthetic, time frame, spatial limitations.
- Emotional Consideration: Will I regret this? Is this helpful? Will this relieve me? Thinking ahead and engaging with moral, emotional and ethical consideration to future selves and others when living/using communally or independently. Cleaning as cathartic, living with ease, as personal: the things out of sight or immediately at hand approaches.
- What our belongings say about us: do they say anything? are they entirely removed? are they essential to ‘us’? how much do they indicate? what are those objects/systems/values/ways of practicing living saying about us? what about the condition of them: where they are placed, are they clean, are they dirty, are they new? difference between the jeans that are overwashed but new compared to the treasured older pair that are folded at the bottom of the wardrobe.
- Treasured objects: collected items, the quality, age, quantity of them, emotional significance, the respect owed and given, comparison with hoarding and differences between.
